Merry Christmas, from Junk Rescue!

Sonoco Open House

Junk Rescue attended an open house today at Sonoco's Charlotte Recycling Center.  Sonoco, one of the largest global packaging companies, just completed an expansion of their recycling facility located at 3901 Barringer Drive.  They will now be able to process even larger volumes of recycled materials, including glass, plastic, and metal containers.

The $2 million expansion takes the Charlotte facility to approximately 24,000 square feet while adding state-of-the-art sorting and baling equipment.  In addition, the center's yard space has been redesigned to improve traffic flow and unloading at the facility.  Sonoco's Charlotte facility used to only accept and process corrugated cardboard and other grades of paper products.  As of Monday, they will now be able to accept plastic, glass, and metal containers mixed in with paper and cardboard.   Through a material sorting process, they will be able to separate all of the materials from each other before shipping it to their different packaging centers.  This makes Sonoco the first zero sort recycling facility in the Charlotte region.

http://www.sonoco.com/sonoco

Plastic Bottles Are BANNED!

During the 2005 legislative session, the N.C. General Assembly passed House Bill 1465, banning plastic bottles from disposal effective October 1, 2009. The law does not apply to containers that are intended for use in the sale and distribution of motor oil or plastic pesticide bottles.

Recycling plastic bottles conserves energy and resources and creates jobs; more than 14,000 people are employed in the recycling industry in North Carolina.  Bottles can be recycled back into plastic bottles, or can have a completely new life as a different product - such as carpet, lumber, other types of containers or even clothing.  North Carolina and the southeast are home to plastic plants hungry for material to make new products, so recycling your bottles is a great way to close the recycling loop!

At least 95 percent of North Carolina residents have access to some type of plastic bottle recycling through local government programs. Unfortunately, North Carolinians currently only recycle 18 percent of PET plastic bottles. Do your part - recycle plastic bottles - and explore this site to learn how!

http://www.p2pays.org/BannedMaterials/PlasticBottles/index.asp

Parking Deck Disaster

It’s hard to keep a multi-tenant property tidy. It’s even harder when the company that is taking away the bulk items from your property discontinues their service. With more items coming in each day, and nothing going out, something had to be done.

Junk Rescue was called for this emergency pick up in downtown Charlotte. It was not an ordinary location, but to our surprise was on top of a parking deck. This became the destination for tenants and workers to bring unwanted items, including 7 wood pallets, 6 mattresses/boxsprings, 5 3-yd rolling dumpsters, 5 large commercial trash cans, 4 couches, 2 small trash cans, 1 futon, 1 washer, shelves, office chairs, etc.

The sorting began! Each parking space became the territory for a different material. Junk Rescue recycled all wood, bulk plastics, appliances, and metal. Unfortunately, because of the condition of the furniture being outside in the rain and having insects dwelling in the furniture, these items could not be salvaged. It was a sad day. Junk Rescue despises going to the landfill, so a reminder to everyone…keep quality items that can be donated in a safe place so others can benefit and we can continue to ‘give junk a second chance!’

Realtor's Care Day

With the economy in shambles and more and more people struggling to pay for home repairs, the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association decided to take action.  On April 24, 600 Realtors put aside their usual ambition of selling homes and volunteered to help repair houses for low income families, as well as some elderly and disabled homeowners.

The event was known as Realtors Care Day.  While the sun tested everyone’s strength, these Realtors were determined to help those in need.  Over 30 homeowners were helped out by mainly Realtors, but also professionals such as builders, developers, painters, roofers, and home inspectors.  Junk Rescue was on scene and assisted where ever possible in moving materials to and from sites.

If you would like to help  next year or would like to know more about the event, please contact the Housing Opportunity Foundation at crrafoundation@carolinahome.com.

Early Times CleanOut

Junk Rescue was called to assist in cleaning out the home of an elderly man. The man was unfortunately a severe pack rat in his old age and managed to fill his entire 3 bedroom/2bathroom home to the point that you could not see the floors. The house was mostly filled with VHS tapes, newspapers, 2 liter Coke bottles, and Early-Times Whiskey bottles. We think we figured out what his favorite drink was. After visiting the property, Junk Rescue accepted the challenge and called in some dumpsters from our friends at Novem Waste. Three days later, we had the 1200 sq/ft ranch house completely empty, including the removal of appliances and fixtures. It took 2, 30 yard construction dumpsters, 1, 20 yard construction dumpster, and 2 trips with our 15 yard truck to haul off all of the material. Believe it or not, we were able to recycled over 300 pounds of plastic bottles and about 500 pounds of newspapers and magazines. We also recycled a washer and dryer, 2 refrigerators, a freezer, a microwave, and numerous tv's and other electronics.